


i think you might be someb0dy new

by Anonymous



Category: Let's Play Cyberpunk Red - Polygon (Web Series)
Genre: Abduction, Amnesia, Kidnapping, M/M, Memory Loss, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-monogamous Relationship, brief mention of transactional sex, some unwoke language re: drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-02-25 01:09:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22007497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The months after Van Gogh's dropped off the grid are the worst.
Relationships: Vang0 Bang0/Burger Chainz
Comments: 20
Kudos: 99
Collections: Anonymous





	i think you might be someb0dy new

**Author's Note:**

> Hoo! This languished in my drafts for a long time because it felt too big to complete while I was working on that darn fic where Pat's a vampire, and then I was really hungover from finishing that, and then I had two exchange fics to finish, but that just means I'm squeaking in one more before 2019 is over.
> 
> This universe takes the idea of 'what if Burger knew vang0 before he lost his memory' and goes, just, full hog with it. Thank you to the discord for relentlessly baiting me on this one, and for being patient while I malingered on writing it.

The months after Van Gogh's dropped off the grid are the worst.

Which is saying something, because Burger's seen some shit. There was the whole time he got kicked in the face by a donkey and couldn't eat solid food for three weeks. There was loading his whole life into a van and running when the De Angeles corporation came to "repossess" the farm. There was the time when that cybernetic virus swept through the net and Burger sweated it out for like three days, feeling like nanos were creeping out of his pores, and Van Gogh— 

Don't think about Van Gogh.

Just turn the wheel to the street and drive, and drive; try to pick up enough jobs that pay enough credits so you don't lose your van, the kind of jobs that need only one strong-as-fuck nomad with shit for brains and a blind spot on his left side like he's missing a limb.

—

He's three days into waiting for a relay drone to drop off a shipment to take back into Night City when he gets the call from the fixer: there's noise on Van Gogh's cyberdeck for the first time in months.

Burger curses; of course it's now. He'd had to stop pinging it every couple hours in order to conserve power, this far out from the humming generators of the City. He should have—he should have been on top of it, 'cause the slick smile of the fixer tells him he's gonna be _in_ for it, for the information.

 _You're gonna wanna get there first,_ Dasha's voice echoes in his mind. _Sounds like he's loaded with wetware and doped to the gills. Figured I'd give you a head start, seeing as you have history with him._

History's a funny fuckin' word. Burger fires up the van and directs it to _hither the fuck yon_ to the coordinates Dasha sent him. He's about eight hours out of the city, to the dark little underbelly of warehouses in the fishpacking district.

He makes it in six and a half.

—

Van Gogh'd come into his life like a flashbang. Burger'd never met anyone who took to people as fast as he did, who could read people so well.

People what come from farming stock, well, they don't might change much. Salt of the earth, no matter how irradiated. Growing up on the hypofarms outside what used to be called Milwaukee, Burger'd come up alongside good people, with strong convictions and fierce loyalties to each other—damn the rest of everyone else with their neon city living. Fuck the corpos, fuck the gangs, fuck anyone who doesn't know the land. You had to earn everything you wanted - a roof, a wage, a meal, a friend, respect.

Then he met Van Gogh, who took one look at him and seemed to see right _into_ him, that shiny mercurial eye he had—has. Has. The eye he has for that perfect angle, for a good gig, for an explosive collaboration. He didn't have to prove himself to Van Gogh, didn't have to lift heavy or punch hard or get beat t'within a half inch of hell without crying; all he had to do was show up, and Van Gogh looked him up and down and said, "you've got a beauty soul, Burger Chainz. You wanna roll with me a while?"

And that had been that. 

Van Gogh's an artist, naturally. Someone as charismatic as Van Gogh, he didn't have any trouble convincing people to part with their credits for the wildest reasons. He'd already made a name for himself among the rising underclass of cyberdeck celebrities long before Burger laid eyes on him, but with Burger on second camera, capturing Van Gogh from an outside point of view and providing color commentary, he was meteoric.

Loving Van Gogh had been easy. He was easy to love—quick, funny, hopeful, generous even with what little they had, absolutely brilliant. They lived out of Burger's van the whole time, and never once did Burger resent him for it, the way Van Gogh's whole self expanded to fill every available space until you were just part of his whole.

Didn't think Van Gogh would love him back, until he did—until Van Gogh turned off both their cameras one day, crawled into his lap, and said, "you can kiss with that thing, right, Burgz?"

Burger'd put his thumb on Van Gogh's mustache, stroking over its little curl. "Can you kiss with yours?"

Van Gogh's expression had been pure delight, like the sun catching the glass off a high-rise building just right. "Why don't we give it a shot?"

—

He pulls up to the warehouse and arms himself straight away. One of Dasha's netrunners had been able to hack Van Gogh's cyberdeck signal, bypassing the net and routing it straight to Burger's deck once he was within wireless, but there's nothing saying an opportunistic so-and-so junkie might not have stumbled across him in meatspace in the meantime.

Van Gogh's voice is in his ear as he approaches, and it's, man, it's a hell of a thing to hear his voice again. He's rambling like a tweaker—what the _fuck_ had he gotten into in five months, it could have been _anything_ —but it's him: that slightly nasal, high-pitched mundane streaming patter. At least it's proof Burger'd gotten here first, which makes him breathe a sigh of relief. He doesn't mind knocking someone's head in, not for Van Gogh, but.

The warehouse is factory-standard, aisle after aisle of plastic tubs destined for wherever they go after mooks like Burger drive 'em places. It's all red-lit, after-hours dim, except for when Burger turns a corner and the motion lights kick in, antiseptic blue all of a sudden. He almost stumbles over the tank before he sees it, boots slipping on a floor glistening wet with some mystery liquid.

It's a medtank—Burger'd never seen one before, not outside an advertisement, and it's hooked up to more medical equipment than he's ever seen in his life besides. It's more equipment than he'd ever be able to _afford_ in his life, even if he sold himself to a meat farm. The, the _something_ , he doesn't know what it is, drones out a low note, like a flatlining heart monitor.

The tank's half full of something that burns his nose. There's more of that liquid everywhere, a big splashy smear across the lino, forming glinting footprints headed out of this area. He's relieved it's not blood, but it makes dread sit heavy in his stomach anyway, the not-quite-water slipperiness under his feet at he gingerly steps through this part of the aisle, following the footprints.

The view from Van Gogh's feed is vertigo-familiar, converging with the actual aisles. He has to close Van Gogh's stream to focus on what he's doing IRL, which means he hears Van Gogh before he sees him—

—which isn't fast enough at all, because all of a sudden there's a squirmy little body on his back, all bone-limbs and scratching fingers. Van Gogh—he assumes it's Van Gogh—catches the implant on Burger's left eye with dirty fingernails and _pulls_ , sending little zaps of electronic pain screaming through Burger's skull.

Anyone else'd go down, but not ol' Burger; he grits his teeth and reaches back, hands slipping around for a grip on the person's slick leotard. He gets bit like a shy stablehand for his troubles, and _damn_ hard. The scrabbly fingers pull again and Burger can feel the biotech synapses of his implant start ripping apart, like a thousand tiny lightbulbs popping and going dark.

 _That_ puts the fear of Server in him. He reaches up and gets a big handful of stringy limp hair and _pulls_ , pulls and pulls, up and over his shoulder until he's got an upside-down armful of yelping bones kicking and struggling against his front. "Easy off, Van Gogh," he tries, and then—and then he's on the ground, on his knees, vision white, because VG's _punched him in the fucking dick_ , and he drops the man like a sack of oats.

"Would ya—stop—fuckin'—" Burger grits out, getting a hold of Van Gogh's skinny ankle as he tries to slither away. "What in the Sam Hill's gotten into ya," he grunts, flipping VG over and getting a knee on his back, wrists gathered up in one hand. Wishes he had a rope, muscle memory, to make it easier. The other hand, he gets in Van Gogh's hair—long, and platinum, and it ain't a wig like he thought; _that's_ different, doesn't match the mustache one bit—and wrenches his head up, twisting it to look in his milky-augmented eyes.

Shit, those are new too. And the other thing is, there ain't a lick of recognition there.

Burger breathes in through his teeth. "Knock knock, Van Gogh," he says. Shakes the head in his hand a little, tryin' to get the light on like a busted flashlight. "You in there?"

Van Gogh's lips curl back into a sneer as he hisses, sharp. "Van Gogh Bang-Go," he says, or something like it; doesn't sound right at all, the A's coming out flatter in his mouth like that ain't what he's saying at all. "That's me. You say it different, though."

"Ain't know another way. Fixin' to let ya up if you're not gonna rip off my dick, den," Burger says, "Don't know where ya been, but it ain't sporting."

The body under his goes deceptively slack. "You know me," Van Gogh says, soft-like, blinking fast as he looks up at Burger through a right mess of silvery hair. There's a few strands stuck in his mustache.

"Sure do," Burger says, and eases off on the arms. VG twists them around and pillows them under his chest, protective.

" _I_ don't even know me," he says, and the expression on his face goes from blank to suspicious. "Who the fuck are _you_?"

"Jeepers, Van Gogh," Burger says. VG's bare arms are covered in ports, more'n the usual for netrunning. "Ya get on some real hard shit while y'were gone, or what?"

Suspicious gives way to frightened, just for a moment. "You keep saying it like that. That's not how you say it."

—

"You know, that's not how you say my name," Van Gogh'd said, in the quiet after one of his shrieking giggling fits, once. He used to laugh a lot, like the whole fucking world was a delight made specially for him. Burger can't remember what'd made him laugh. He thinks they might've been naked, at the time.

"Oh yeah?" he'd said. He remembers the span of his hand on Van Gogh's knobbly chest, the way his blunt fingers fit in the hollows of his ribs. "How's I'm supposed to, then?"

"You probably wouldn't be able to pronounce it. My family was Dutch, did you know? Back when there used to _be_ a Netherlands." Burger'd made a noise like he knew what Van Gogh was on about, and VG'd smiled kind of sad-like, rubbing his nose with his hand. "It's actually like," he'd said, and then said a name that sounded less like a name, and more like when you swallow a mouthful of dry kibble and it gets stuck, wrong-ways.

Burger'd must have made some kinda face, because the side of VG's mouth pulled up all weird. "Told you," he said. "It's fine, it's not even my family name; it's just some artist I saw, once. Don't worry about it."

"Nah, wait," Burger'd replied, heaving himself up to look down into VG's brown eyes. "You're seriously tellin' me your name's been _Von Cock_ this whole time? This whole time."

That got VG laughing again, puttin' the whole world right back on its axis.

—

VG shows him all his earthly possessions, all pushed into a corner at the end of an aisle, under some shelves like a junkie's flop. It ain't much, just a sleek-looking external computer and a folded up windbreaker, and ten full hypos with the caps on 'em still.

"What's this?" Burger says, picking up the hypo and letting it catch the light. The liquid inside's clear, but that don't mean much; plenty a' junk's clear before it goes in your body. Each has a little label, neatly typed: _24h, 48h, 72h_ , and so on.

VG's standing in the aisle still, towering over Burger as he inspects the little hidey-hole. Burger doesn't much like putting VG at his back, not like this, twitchy when Burger's got a hand on his drugs, but he doesn't have anywhere to put him. "Don't know," VG answers, quick-like. "Haven't shot any yet. Pretty sure I'm gonna need to, at some point."

Burger turns, pulling VG's possessions with him as he goes. He eyes VG's arms; VG's not itching fierce or fiddlin' with them yet, but he's got a whole whack of new ports in his arms what ain't been there before. They look clean, not infected or anything, and where his skin meets the ports is smooth and unpuckered, like they'd been put in by a cutter with half a bit of skill about it.

"Alright, den," Burger says, standing up to his full height. VG looks up at him, wary. "First thing's first, you're off to Hypo's ta get clean. I won't ask any questions of ya 'til after."

VG crosses his arms. "Why?"

"Whaddya mean, _why_?" Burger retorts, lettin' himself get big a second. VG doesn't flinch. "'cause ya been a fucking ghost for five months, ya ig-nor-amus, and when the shakes hit ya ain't gonna wanna sweat it out in Keanu, and ya sure as shit ain't gonna wanna clean your piss and vomit out of 'im either!"

"No, _why_ ," VG asks, biting as anything. "Why the fuck do you care?"

—

Van Gogh's a homing bird. Always came back to Burger, even if he took a while to get there. Burger's not the jealous type. He knew VG'd had other friends, other lovers; fucking around for organics, or credits, or just for laughs. It didn't bother Burger none. World's a big place and Burger figures VG just wanted to see as much of it as possible before he got his meat body put in the dirt.

It helped, too, that VG was nearly almost always streaming. Never had ta look hard to find 'im, if Burger needed to hear his voice. And the speed his brain goes, he could ping VG any time, day or night, get a comforting little ping back within seconds, like two strange creatures calling out to each other in the dark.

So when VG didn't respond, well, that was the first sign something'd broke bad for 'im.

And when Burger'd shaken down everyone he knew Van Gogh'd been with, yeah, even the slick-looking motherfucker in the suit who used to feed VG real organic food from his fingers like a puppy—

— _more money than a Corpo, that one, Burger, and real generous with it, and a_ real _big_ —

—and that'd been a trip, Burger feeling the metaphorical dirt on his boots standing in that shiny office, pleading for a bit 'o help—

—and no one'd seen hide nor hair of 'im, well. That'd been the second.

Burger hadn't waited for a third.

—

So VG doesn't know him. Doesn't know much of anything, looks like, when Burger quizzes him. Doesn't know Keanu, when Burger hustles him out of the warehouse and into the van, huffing and growling like a cat at the cold night air on his superheated skin.

It's not much, but it's home—it's Van Gogh's home, most times, when he's not a-wandering, but those milky white eyes ain't got any more recognition than they did before, even when Burger shows him their tidy little living space in the back.

VG runs his finger over the hot plate, as if checking for dust, then asks, "You got wifi?"

"Sure thing," Burger says, passing VG the credentials over message. VG nods, businesslike, and crawls onto the mattress with his external rig. "Whatcha got dere den?"

VG's eyes flick up to him, then back at the screen. It lights up, bright, picking out the planes of his face in the dim. "Jumptrash forums. I'm a moderator, apparently. See?"

VG spins the rig around, and Burger scans the screen while VG pulls the dust cover off his interface implant in his palm. The little servos and wires move underneath, like tendons, like a butchered calf with its skin off. Burger doesn't look. _Logged in as vang0bang0_ , the screen reads, up in the corner, then _moderator_ underneath.

"Well, I'll be damned," Burger says, but Van Gogh's already gone in, face slack and milky eyes glowing faintly. Burger waves his hand in front of VG's face, but he's sightless while netrunning, completely still and strangely vulnerable, like a porcelain doll sitting up in the corner. Burger gently tips him over so Keanu's jostling won't fuck with him, leaves him curled up on his side with one hand on his pad, silver hair fanned out on their pillows.

He calls the fixer, because what the fuck else is he supposed to do.

Dasha listens while he gives her the update, listing out out Van Gogh's amnesia, his strange affect, his new mods. Burger can't tell what her face is doing, but by the end of it, it's _angry_.

"Mother _fuck_ , Burger, you shit-for-brains hauler," she curses, and Burger tries to get in a _hey, now_ but she rolls right into the next without letting him get a word in edgewise: "Someone's turned that shiny little himbo into a mockingbird and you just _kept him_?"

"An' what was I supposed to do, Dasha? Leave 'im?" Burger says, feeling his belly get hot. Don't blow up on the fixer, ya dern idiot. He takes a breath. "I've been looking for 'im for five months, I ain't gonna let 'im get away just because he's got someone else's fingerprints all over 'im."

"You dumbfuck romantic," Dasha mutters. "Does he know? About me? Fuck, damn, whoever's watching him probably traced the re-routed stream back to Gaze. What else does he know? What have you told him?"

Burger looks back into the cab of the van. VG's still out, breathing even and deep like he's just asleep. The curl of his fingers tightens and relaxes, as if reaching out to something. Burger sighs. "Hypo. He knows we're going to Hypo's, that's it."

"That's all he can know, Burger," Dasha says, and her voice is deadly serious. "Whoever took him and gave him all those augments wants dirt on someone Van Gogh's got access to, and it could be—"

"—anyone," Burger finishes, and Dasha nods.

"Now you're getting it, big guy," she says, and then digs her fingertips into her eyes. "No one else can know he's back. Anyone who he used to run with is in danger, even us." She smiles, a little, at that. "Well, probably not you. No offense."

"None taken," Burger says, amicably, and fires up Keanu. _What's good, my lord_ , the AI greets him, and Burger pats the dashboard. "I'm gonna get him on the road 'afore whatever he's on wears off. Thanks for yer counsel, Dasha."

"Well, I don't have a choice now, do I," she responds, face grim. "I'm certainly stuck with you chucklefucks until we figure out who did this, and why."

"An' I'm right glad ta have ya," Burger responds, and pulls out of the warehouse loading bay.

—

Van Gogh—or, vang0 bang0, as he introduces himself, complete with a cockamamie hand gesture that spells out V and B with his fingers—takes to Hypo like oil to water, but Burger figures Hypo's seen it all, because somehow he hustles VG into a bed in the clinic without more fuss than necessary.

Burger waits in the lounge of the clinic, flicking through the jumptrash forum with his ocular augment. It's a load of nothing, mostly; just the usual chatter of people sharin' their lives with strangers. He must lose track of time, because the next thing he knows, the man Hypo himself's beside him.

"Come with me, Burger, would you," he says, and Burger follows him upstairs into his office.

"Well, good news for our friend," Hypo tells him after the door's shut, handing over the ten needles of clear junk. "The only thing in these is a cocktail of anti-rejection nanites. Completely non-toxic and non-addictive. He should take these as directed, however mysterious."

"And the bloodwork, doc? He clean?"

Hypo frowns. "Nothing to be—well. I'd normally say, nothing to be concerned about, but...." He steps closer to Burger, gestures for him to physically link their data implants. Burger does, baring his wrist, and Hypo grabs his forearm, bringing their skin into contact. "There's no trace of any addictive substances. But… there's a few more anomalies than the surveillance ones you mentioned," he murmurs, close to Burger's ear, as the files transfer over the secure connection. "Metabolic augments. Painkilling nanites. Stimulant injectors. Empathy blockers," he lists, then shakes his head. "They completely overclocked him. The wetware in him… could buy out this section of the city, Burger. Someone sunk a lot of credits into this one."

"Geez Louise," Burger breathes, and Hypo nods. The haptics in Burger's wrist pulse as the file transfer completes.

"You have any idea who'd wanna use him like this?" Hypo asks.

Burger shakes his head. "Not a dern clue."

"Until you know, he's dangerous," Hypo says, looking Burger straight in the eye. "He's gonna burn fast and hot, Burger. It's in his code, now. And someone's gonna come looking for him—and what he knows—sooner or later." 

"I got it, doc."

Hypo nods, once. "Keep him safe, Burger. Whoever's coming for him, they've got a lot riding on it. Those kind of people—they don't care whoever else's lives they ruin."

Burger thinks of… shiny marble floors, and lights that don't hum, and real wood furniture, and men in suits who have enough organic food to share it with a gutter rat for the price of his mouth. 

"Sure thing," Burger says, affecting his goofy smile. The lines around Hypo's eyes lighten.

"You're going to have your hands full with this one," he says, clapping Burger on the shoulder. "Server protect you both."

—

He collects Van Gogh downstairs. Well, _vang0_. It'll take a bit in his head to overwrite those memories, but, well. It's gotta be done. _Kill the man he used to be_ , Dasha'd told him, before they disconnected. _Let him die_.

Burger can't do that, anymore'n he could kill him now.

vang0 spots him as soon as he comes downstairs, scooting across the clinic floor, trailing a net of tubes and wires. Somewhere, some monitoring equipment hums in alarm with his absence, and vang0 rocks on his feet, lurching forward and back like he wants to bolt. "Are we blowin' this joint?" he asks.

"Yeah," Burger replies, and vang0 whoops as he pulls the umbilicals from his ports. "Easy on, vang0, I gotta pay fer yer shit."

"Just take him, please," an orderly mutters, as she comes over and stoops to pick up the discarded equipment. "That's payment enough."

—

Vang0 fairly explodes out of the clinic, taking in a deep breath of city air like it's the freshest ocean breeze. "Hoo!" he shouts, stretching his long body up to the shuttered sky. "Where to, Burgz?"

For a second, it's almost normal.

Burger thinks on that. He'd have a few ideas, naturally, but Dasha's warning rings in his head. It's gotta be all new from here on. Nowhere and no one that whoever watching Van Gogh might want to know more about, for everyone's safety.

"Dunno," Burger hedges, looping his thumbs in his belt and looking up at the sky. He supposes it's a might pretty, if you've never seen it before, reflecting neon up around the foggy necks 'n shoulders of the skyscrapers. He looks at Van Gogh, who's a fair bit more beautiful than anything else besides. "D'you like burgers?"

vang0 flashes him a smile back, quick and silvery. "You know, I'm thinking I might."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! The nicest thing you can do is leave a lil ol' comment, for I am but a simple bitch who craves that dopamine. <3
> 
> I'd be delighted as hell to see remixes of the Van Gogh-verse! If you make anything, please let me know!
> 
> (and props to Tales From The Afternow for the invocation of 'Server')


End file.
